


The (Mis)Understanding

by Anonymous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Castiel and Dean Winchester Need to Use Their Words, Castiel/Dean Winchester Mutual Pining, Crying Castiel (Supernatural), Crying Dean Winchester, Dean and Cas Hug It Out, Emotionally Hurt Castiel (Supernatural), Emotionally Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt Castiel (Supernatural), Jealous Dean Winchester, M/M, Sam is a Good Brother
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2021-02-18 07:55:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21557818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Dean thinks Cas knows how things are, that they’re together if nottogethertogether.Except if that’s the case, then how come Cas spends the night with some guy they meet on a hunt?Well, two can play at that game, but it’s only in the morning that Dean realises maybe not everything is what it seems, and maybe....Maybe he needed to be sure that Cas understood instead of just assuming.
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 180
Collections: Supernatural Anon Kink Meme





	The (Mis)Understanding

**Author's Note:**

> Our boys need to use their words, that is a certainty.
> 
> Sometimes I just want to throw Dean a rope and help him climb out of that pit of low self worth and self -abuse he’s fallen into and then hug the shit out of him.
> 
> And do the exact same for Cas.
> 
> *sighs* Our boys.

Sometimes, Dean will catch Sam looking at them, and rolling his eyes, and Dean will glare at his little brother because so what if Sam thinks they’re just a little ridiculous.

It works for them, and that’s what matters. So maybe they don’t do romantic dinners, or sit up late parked somewhere in Baby to stare at the stars, and they absolutely do not indulge in PDAs.

(Or even in private).

But they wouldn’t even if they were...whatever it is Sam expects of them.

Dean knows how things are. Cas does too, and there’ll come a time when, well, it’s _time_ , when they’re ready, 

Until then, nobody else’s opinion is wanted or required, because he and the angel are on the same page and nothing else matters.

++

So, Father Declan’s church is definitely haunted, and whoever it is, they’re a nasty streak of piss.

This is a hunt they need to wrap up fast before anybody else ends up decorating the pews with their blood and body parts.

And Declan insists on helping. He pegs them as hunters nearly straight off, but then it turns out he’s been a kind of on the road refuge for anybody in the business who needed a place to crash, or confession, or whatever.

And he’s quick on the uptake too; maybe it’s been so long since they’ve had an outsider working with them that he and Sam slipped, but Declan must have picked up on something they said because he figures out that Cas is an angel.

That makes Dean a little guarded around him, and loath to let him stand too close to Cas; Sam sees no harm in it, but Dean can see that, priest or not priest, Declan’s attention to Cas is less than holy.

It just makes him all the more determined to get the job done and get his family home; he isn’t afraid of Cas straying, but he isn’t always great at reading people’s intentions, not for things like this, and he seems to think Declan’s interest is either just friendly or professional.

Sam thinks so too, even when it ends up being unsafe for Declan to stay at the church when the ghost starts personally targeting him, so he needs up moving into the same motel as them.

And they had booked two doubles, and Cas is only taking up one bed in his room, so it makes sense for Declan to sleep in with him.

Just in case the ghost pays him a middle of the night visit somehow. Cas says so. Sam says so too.

Dean’s fears go unspoken, but Sam somehow seems to pick up on them, and Dean guesses he’s pissed his little brother off because they fight about it.

Quietly, with the celestial wavelength of intent two rooms down, but it gets heated anyway.

Sam wants to know why Dean thinks it’s any of his business if Cas and Declan did get up to anything, not that it’s likely because, hello, angel, piriest?

Dean tells Sam that Cas is their angel (he almost slips up, almost says _his_ ) and priests are people too, and some of the ones Dean’s met have no claim on the professional title.

Even though he’s sure of Cas, he doesn’t get much sleep that night.

++

The next day, they find out who the ghost is, and where the bones are, right under the damn church floor, and he and Cas fend off the spirit while Sam and Declan dig up the remains and burn them.

They get out with nothing more than scratches and a few aches, and Declan tails along for a celebratory beer before they turn in for the night. They’ll head out in the morning.

Between bouts of fending off one of the ladies staying at the motel, Dean expresses his surprise when Declan orders a whiskey. Priest don’t drink, right?

(Course, they’re also not supposed to go lusting after angels, either, especially not his angel, but there it is.)

Declan gives him an iffy smile, and tugs loose his collar.

Today, as it happens, was his last day as a priest; he doesn’t stray into why, but it’s like a weight comes off his shoulder as he defrocks, and, when he looks at Cas next, Dean sees something in there a lot more intense that what he’s seen before.

He asks Sam to swap beds, either with Cas or Declan; Dean would even bunk with the guy to keep him from having a slumber party with Cas.

Sam thinks he’s being ridiculous, and besides he’s already in bed, half asleep, and tells Dean that if it bugs him so much he can go and ask one of the other two to move rooms.

But Dean can’t do that. Because if he does, then it’s going to be suggesting to Cas he’s got no faith in him, and it could be playing right into Declan’s hands.

And, of course, there’s always the chance he’s wrong and he comes off looking like a dumbass.

So he doesn’t. He gets changed, and he tries to settle down for the night, but he can’t get it out of his head. Maybe Declan makes a move, and Cas is too flustered, too caught off guard to tell him no, immediately, because he never sees it coming, and even if he pushes Declan away then, Dean will still have a reason to shoot the claim jumping little shit in the morning, because he’ll know even if Cas doesn’t tell him what happened.

He surrenders to it about an hour in, and sneaks out of the room, creeps along the row of doors until he reaches the one his angel’s behind, and presses his ear to it.

He hears quiet murmuring, a low laugh, and then he hears Cas say Declan’s name, low and heavy, and there are other sounds, and Dean knows what they are, and he recoils from the door like it was weeping blood.

So much for not having to worry about Cas.

He stumbles back towards their room, and then a door opens, not his, and the woman from the bar is standing there.

She grins, like this is some happy circumstance, and when she holds out her hand, he knows he shouldn’t.

But so much for his and Cas’s understanding.

So he takes it, anyway, and lets her tug him inside.

++

Come the morning, he wakes up, and the first thing he thinks is that he’s fucked up, big time, but then Cas fucked up too, and that’s what they are, fucked up, and then Sam’s pounding on the door.

The lady’s none too happy about that, and Dean makes his apologies as he scrabbles into his clothes, and he’s only half way there when he figures he’d better open up before his brother knocks the door off its hinges.

He finds Sam standing there, with Cas and Declan behind him, way closer than Dean considers acceptable but hey, it’s not like that’s his problem any more.

Until he sees the look of hurt acceptance on Cas’s face, and his temper starts up. Like Cas has a right to be hurt, here.

Sam looks past him to the woman, probably sees the bed, definitely knows, like they all do, now, and suddenly Dean isn’t so sure, like he was last night, angry and hurt, but fuck that.

Declan’s standing closer to Cas than he has any right to, and his temper surges back up and he needs that now.

He doesn’t know what he says, but he hears Sam snapping his name in response, and then he’s pushing past them and heading to his room.

He locks the bathroom door behind him, and turns on the shower, and strips and gets in, and washes the stink of sex off him and wonders what it’d be like to hear Cas call out for him as Dean made him come, and how that was a first Declan stole from him.

No, not stole. That Cas gave up, and he furiously shoves down the hot tears that well up.

++

Cas isn’t there when Dean finally emerges. Sam isn’t, either, but Declan is, with the old, battered spare duffel Sam keeps for emergencies and shoving a few spare items of clothing into it.

He tells Dean that Sam said it was okay, a little help for his fresh start.

Dean sees it as another member of his family giving something away to this fuck, but hey that seems to be how they’re rolling this past day.

He doesn’t acknowledge him, just starts for the door, to see if he can track down the other two, when Declan’s suddenly in his path.

Oh, Dean could move him. Declan’s his height and build, but it’s soft, like he’s kept in shape but easy style, so there’s no way he can even land a punch.

Probably doesn’t even know how to throw one.

But Dean knows if he puts hands on this guy, it’s not going to end well, and he does not need Sam ragging on him for beating up a priest.

So he stands there, eyes fixed on the door behind Declan as the man tells him he can see what’s going on here.

Between him and Cas, and what Dean thinks is going on between Cas and him.

And Dean has it wrong.

He tells Dean what they were really doing, which amounts to the fact that Cas was hurt during the fight to put down the ghost, and didn’t want them to know because they were hurt too, and his Grace is waning, and so Declan did what he could.

And because they make good listeners, and Declan could see Cas needed somebody to talk to, he let the angel get it out. 

How he’s waited on Dean, waiting for Dean to decide if he wanted Cas or not, but after all these years, he’s decided Dean doesn’t, has accepted that the type of love he feels for Dean might, possibly, be reciprocated, but Dean will never act on it.

Declan doesn’t know if Cas is right or not, well he didn’t but given Dean’s reaction he’s pretty sure he does now, as does Cas, having it proven to him in the most awful of ways, but there’s a good chance Dean has just wrecked any possibility of a relationship with the angel, and probably wrecked the angel as well.

Dean stares at the ex priest. He wants to believe Declan’s lying, that he did fuck Cas last night, and now he’s trying to dig himself out of a hole for fear Dean breaks his damn jaw.

Except he can see nothing but truth, there, and holy shit he’s just taken one of the best things in his life and fucked it up before it even got started.

Lucky for him Declan knows where Sam and Cas are, and of course Sam’s with their angel.

His angel, if he even has the right to say that.

Dean says their goodbyes, and finds the truck gone, so he takes the Impala and heads for the church.

++

It looks even worse in the morning, the wreckage of their battle with the ghost and the pit they’d dug in the middle of the floor ready to be an unpleasant surprise for whichever of the church helpers turn up first.

He hopes Declan makes his resignation official, and doesn’t just disappear, because anybody seeing this and finding their parish is missing a priest is going to jump to the wrong conclusion fast.

But that’s not his problem, and not why he’s here.

He finds Cas and Sam sitting up front, Cas facing forward, Sam turned so he can lean in, speaking so softly that Dean almost doesn’t dare approach.

He’s seen Sam like that before, when he’s handling somebody hurt, somebody he’s worried is on the edge and ready to slip out of reach.

Sam looks up when Cas stiffens, obviously aware they’re not alone any more, and the look he gives Dean is less angry than it is sad, but he doesn’t miss the command Sam’s telegraphing him, that he’d better fix this.

He makes an ill judged joke, about if Chuck’s looking for them, sitting in his house will make them easy to find.

Cas’s voice is low, despondent as he tells Dean he doubts Chuck even pays attention to the faithful who gather in his name, and probably doesn’t know a church from any other building on the face of the Earth.

They’re no more out in the open here than if they were screaming his name on a mountaintop somewhere.

Sam gets up, and shuffles past Cas to get out of the pew, and pats his shoulder as he does.

Dean resists the urge to beg his brother to stay. It’s not that he’s that much of a coward, or maybe he is, but somehow with Sam in the room it’s easier to be…

...the version of himself that got him into this, so he lets Sam go and then stops at the end of the pew.

Cas doesn’t move up straight away, not until Dean touches his shoulder, and then he scoots a good few feet over and yeah, that hurt, but he figures he had it coming.

He sits down, in the quiet, and looks up at the cross hanging over the altar. 

It starts to feel a little too like a confession, but isn’t that why he’s here? 

The words come hard at first, stumbling, and he doesn’t look at Cas. That makes it a little easier, like he’s talking to the silent, empty church, and he lets it all out, drains himself dry, laughs at himself that he actually thought Cas would know anything about ‘an arrangement’ he’d concocted himself in his head as a way of not having to put it all on the line.

Because he wasn’t ready. He wasn’t ready to give that much of himself to Cas, when everybody he’d tried with before had gone or hurt him, one way or another.

And Cas...Cas had too. 

But the difference between Cas and everybody else was that Cas had come back. Always come back, and made amends.

And Dean...Dean had done his fair share of hurting Cas as well, of not leaving him but of pushing him away.

He grinds to a halt, suddenly sure, and last night’s proof, that he doesn’t deserve Cas. Not when he knows he’ll hurt him again, willfully, like he just has.

And then Cas’s hand is on his shoulder, then on his cheek, turning Dean towards him.

Cas is crying. And Dean, he is too, because Cas is crying thanks to him, and he doesn’t know what to do to put it right.

He looks away, and then reaches out, on faith, and if that isn’t the biggest irony every, and opens his arms.

And Cas falls into them, and all Dean can say then is an endless stream of apologies, and promises to never hurt him again, and if he has any control over anything in his life anymore, they’re promises he’ll bleed to keep.

Sam doesn’t say anything when they finally come out of the church. He doesn’t have to, Dean guesses, when he sees his big brother leading an angel by the hand.

Instead he gets into the driver’s seat, and Dean gets in back with Cas, and settles down when Cas’s head comes to rest on his shoulder.

Yeah. Things are going to be different going forward. 

He’s going to hold on to Cas and he is not going to let go.


End file.
